Obama from Washington, DC
I may have had front row seats to CCAL’s spectacular Juice Bar display of Obama’s inauguration, but some members of my family had back, back, back, back, back, back row seats on the National Mall! The report from the trenches:
It was total bliss!!!!!
We did make it to the Mall. It was very easy, actually, once we dragged ourselves out of bed at 3 a.m. We found one of the last parking spots at the Metro and caught a 6 a.m. train without any trouble, even with a huge crowd. [After breakfast,] we walked about 3 miles or so to find an entrance to the Mall.
On the Mall it was just an endless sea of people, all of whom were smiling and happy and introducing themselves from all over the country. Seattle, Alabama, Vermont, Rhode Island were represented around me where we settled to watch at the Washington Monument, which was as close as we could get!
We all hugged the happy, friendly strangers we stood for two hours with after it was over. What a change from all my previous participation in mobs on the Mall, protesting! This was just such an enormous natural high, all these
people out to witness history and celebrate this incredible event and this wonderful man. It was all very moving and brought many happy tears. People were bonkers with joy. His speech was beautiful.
Everyone booed Bush when he came on!
Although it was a crowd reminiscent of the March of the Penguins, it was just great because we were all so happy!
I have no idea of the numbers, but we were all the way down at the Washington Monument by 9 a.m. and it was filling in fast that far away by then. It appeared to be full to the WWII memorial when we finally left. I could see people as far as the Lincoln [Memorial], but I don’t know how dense a crowd it was all the way down there.
Well, this is not a very organized description, but just thought I’d share my first thoughts with you upon returning.
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